The Influence of Differential Response on Decision-Making in Child Protective Service
Purpose:Differential response has profoundly changed the decision pathways of public child welfare systems by offering ways to respond to maltreatment reports other than launching a child protective services (CPS) investigation. Although experts have posited that DR implementation may have a significant impact on the overall rates of investigations, substantiations, and other CPS case decisions in agencies, to date, this hypothesis has not been tested across a large sample of counties. Using a national sample, this study examines the extent to which DR implementation within county CPS agencies is associated with the increased likelihood of an investigated neglect case receiving a substantiated disposition. The analysis also accounts for child-level (race/ethnicity, gender, age, and whether the child ever was a prior victim) and county-level predictors (child poverty rates, population density, and the proportion of White children in the population).
Methods:The study uses data from the 2010 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) Child File, U.S. Census, and Department of Agriculture. It includes 1,002,398 neglect investigation records from 291 counties in 40 states. A series of multilevel logistic regression models tested the likelihood that a neglect investigation resulted in a substantiated (or indicated) disposition. Specifically, three models were tested: (1) null, (2) child-level fixed-effects, and (3) child- and county-level fixed-effects. Odds ratios were used to interpret the effects of predictors and nested models were compared using the likelihood ratio test.
Results: Neglect investigations in CPS agencies with DR were significantly more likely to be substantiated than similar cases in non-DR agencies. Specifically, even when taking into account race, age, and prior victim status of the child, an investigation in a DR county has a 2.41 times greater chance of being substantiated than an investigation in a non-DR agency. Prior victims, younger children, and females also had greater likelihoods of having substantiated investigations (OR= 1.33, 1.05, 1.02, respectively). Compared to White children, Asian and Hispanic children were significantly more likely to be a subject of a substantiated investigation, (OR=1.14, 1.06 respectively). African American children, however, had no significant difference in relative odds of substantiation compared to White children (OR=1.01). No statistically significant relationship was found between substantiation and the county-level predictors of poverty, population density, or proportion of White children (p> 0.05).
Conclusions: The association between substantiation rates and DR implementation is not surprising, but the power of the relationship is notable compared with effects of other child- and county-level characteristics. A previous study using the same data source found that population-based investigation rates are significantly lower in DR counties than in non-DR counties. Taken together, these findings suggest that DR agencies target investigations to a smaller, higher-risk pool of cases while diverting other families to community-based services. These major shifts in CPS case flow may require corresponding adjustments in agency staffing, services, and resource allocation and may also inform current discussions about public child welfare’s expanding role into family support and prevention efforts.